


Like a Kitten on Your Lap

by mightierthanthecanon



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:47:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7475739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightierthanthecanon/pseuds/mightierthanthecanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry helps put Victor back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Kitten on Your Lap

Victor stood alone in his workshop after the doctor had left, the touch of his fingers burning on Victor’s skin.

“What if I could tame her?” Dr. Jekyll had asked, his voice soft like crushed velvet, and Victor’s tongue still ached from how hard he’d bitten it. The ‘yes’ in his mind had been so insistent he could almost hear it, although Victor still wasn’t entirely sure what it was he’d be saying yes to. 

The offer, or the man himself?  

Because Victor hadn’t had to ask–hadn’t had to doubt his capabilities. Of all Dr. Jekyll’s talents, the taming of wild creatures was something Victor knew he could do. He’d experienced it firsthand.

As a child, Victor expressed neither hysterical, nor violent tendencies, but he’d been wild nonetheless. Courtesy and kindness both were anathema to him, and gentle words like poison, but, even as a boy, Henry Jekyll had managed to slip past Victor’s defenses. As a man, he’d reduced them to rubble, then dust, then nothing.

Even after all this time, ten minutes alone in a room with Dr. Jekyll and Victor was practically clawing up the walls, nails digging into his skin as he tried to will the hot desire out of his skin. It was like a drug, being around the man. Time hadn’t faded it, nor had the morphine replaced it. Ten minutes, and he was back in that tiny room they’d shared, when he and Henry had been each other’s whole world. When Dr. Jekyll’s word had been law. 

A shudder coursed through Victor’s body as memories he’d tried to forget flashed before his mind’s eye. Bodies, bedsheets, bruised necks, and knees, and pride, and, through it all, the warm smile of Dr. Jekyll, hungry as the sun and possessive as a god.

Instruments clattered onto the floor as Victor stumbled to the far side of the room, nearly falling into a chair.  It was crude of him, undignified, surely, but the need between his legs was both intense and insistent. There wasn’t time to get to his bedroom. He ripped open his trousers, pulling at ties and yanking at buttons. Finally, he had a hand on his cock, and Victor sighed in bitter relief. 

Here he was. Again.

His shame was only matched by his arousal, his arousal only by his shame, and they each grew together, the one feeding on the other. Just as Dr. Jekyll had originally intended.

The phrase “pavlovian conditioning” came to mind.

It had always been the same with them. They’d meet for a drink, stay up too late over books, talk too long over science and then…

And then the esteemed Dr. Jekyll would get on his knees and suck Victor off.

It wasn’t because he enjoyed the act itself, although he might have–Victor had never heard about Henry doing _that_ to anyone else, and wouldn’t have wanted to know even if he did–but because the doctor liked the way Victor fell apart beneath him. It was the first addiction Victor had ever tasted, and he used to go out of his mind without it, losing himself and falling and flying and waiting until Henry knocked on his door, benevolent, and put him back together again. 

“Purring like a kitten,” he’d said. 

Victor bit down on a moan. Henry’s voice, which had always hummed quietly inside Victor’s brain, was louder now, rolling over his shoulders like thick grey fog and obscuring the various familiar hums of the lab. He remembered all the things Henry used to say–the things he’d call him–quiet, beautiful, terrifying things, things Victor pretended not to have heard and which he collected deep inside himself. Things about his heart–about his soul–that only Henry knew were true. The insults, the encouragements, the praise, all in that crisp accented murmur that Victor had grown to know better than his own thoughts.

He could feel himself sweating, labored breaths coming faster as Victor’s hand moved almost of its own volition–quick, purposeful strokes he’d learned from Henry, and which sent his entire body tingling with desire. 

Desire. It was an emotion Victor had sought to put aside for good, after losing Lily, but it obvious that he’d failed at this, too. Even lost in his lust, Victor was not surprised. It was only the second time he’d done it, after all, and hadn’t his first attempt been a failure?

With effort, Victor slowed first his hands, then his breathing. The damp coolness of the wall bled through his thin shirt, and Victor leaned back into it, willing himself to be calm. 

He would not think of Dr. Jekyll. This had nothing to do with the man. It was only natural to turn to the pleasures of the flesh in times of inner turmoil and heightened emotion. It was only his mind that was distressed–not his body. Not his heart. Not his soul.

If he even had one anymore.

Midday had passed, and the sun with it. The light that filtered through the dirty windows now was thick and sooty like the glass itself. Still, Victor closed his eyes tight against it, stroking his cock roughly as he gave himself over to the sensation. His mind cycled incessantly through dreams and fears and fantasies he thought he’d drowned in morphine. Lily as Victor had made her (her breasts soft and white with newness, her eyes clear and trusting), Lily as she was now (the mocking eyebrow, the cruel red mouth, the blood on her hands). The images washed over him like a flood–Lily with John, Lily with Dorian, Lily bound and lashed to a table. Lily, Lily, Lily.

Until suddenly it wasn’t Lily anymore. It was Victor himself, bound and gagged, suffering under the whip, and the flogger, and other instruments almost too cruel to wield. But he wasn’t the one with the whip in his hand.

Dr. Jekyll wielded it. It wasn’t the Henry that Victor remembered from childhood that he imagined. No, it was the one he had just met–older, and wiser, with a cool, easy confidence he’d only seen flashes of when they were younger.

Victor felt himself moan out loud as the images in his mind turned from fantasy to memory. It had been a more regular occurrence than either of them had wanted to admit, and image after image flashed in Victor’s mind, not stopping until arousal, together with nostalgia, made him almost sick with wanting.

Sick, yes. But not sick enough. Not sick enough to stop.

Victor’s hands, once gentle and precise, had lost both their rhythm and their grace, and moved over his cock with singleminded desperation. The morphine had done its dull job almost too well, and the simple, physical release Victor sought only eluded him. He stroked his cock, massaged his balls, pinched his nipples, even–he felt himself blush–brushed his fingers against his own entrance. But nothing. Nothing, except for a slow, dull ache that he could feel, not just in his cock, but in his chest as well, pulsing like a heartbeat. When nearly ten minutes had passed and the feeling in his cock had passed from pleasure and gone straight to pain without ever quite cresting that peak, Victor felt tears of frustration pricking at his eyes. He turned around, letting his forehead thump against the wall almost hard enough to hurt. 

Ten minutes. 

Ten minutes in Dr. Jekyll’s company, and Victor was exactly where he had been all those years ago–miserable and alone and wishing more than anything that Henry would come back.

Victor leaned against the wall, hating the morphine, hating his body, and hating himself. He’d wanted to hate Henry, as a young man, but had quickly given up on the idea. More than most, Dr. Jekyll had always been aware of the boundary between love and hate–its ephemeral transience–and Victor always knew that a declaration of hate would be met with the same knowing satisfaction as a confession of love. 

Before he could push the thought away, a hand smoothed across the back of his neck, raising and gentling goosebumps in one even stroke.

“It seems you need my assistance with more than just Lily,” Dr. Jekyll said, amusement thickening the familiar accent so that it dripped off his lips like honey. “Don’t you, Victor?”

Victor started. How had Henry gotten in? Had he even left?

But he could feel Henry’s body, tall and broad behind his, and when the doctor squeezed Victor’s neck in a gesture that was more possessive than comforting, Victor’s heart began to race. One touch, and the when and the why faded away, leaving nothing behind but the feeling.

“Yes,” Victor breathed, shuddering as Henry’s fingers trailed between his shoulder blades, then down, lower, to squeeze at his backside. He gasped at the raw sensuality of it. 

It wasn’t a memory behind Victor now. It wasn’t a shade, or a shadow. It was Dr. Jekyll himself, real and solid. Bitterness and adrenaline and frustration melted into warm, syrupy arousal, and Victor let himself sag against the wall. Henry was here now. Henry would take care of him.

“Yes, what?” Dr. Jekyll asked. He _tsked_ softly into Victor’s neck. “I trust you have not entirely forgotten your manners.”

Victor’s eyes fluttered shut, and he took a deep breath before shaking his head. He hadn’t. He hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Yes, Dr. Jekyll, I need your help. Please.” The old wordscame back easily, without effort, and the  _please_ was out of his mouth before Victor even realized he was going to say it.

“Please what?” Henry prodded, even as he spun Victor around, pushing him flat against the wall. His hands were light on Victor’s chest, opening his shirt with one dextrous hand and holding him by the throat with the other.

He’d been Victor’s entire world, once. Then, his Creature, Proteus, Lily…but they were all gone now. Without his children, without his _family_ , Victor had been feeling out of control, unanchored in this life. Now that Henry was here, Victor had something to hold on to. Victor struggled against him–to make sure that he was there. To make sure that he was real. To make sure that he wouldn’t leave–not yet, at least. 

Henry’s lips twitched in an almost-smile as Victor struggled ineffectually against him. It was a dance they’d done a million times before, and neither of them had forgotten a single step.

“Say it, Victor,” Dr. Jekyll coaxed, in a whisper that was no less gentle for the fire in his eyes. “You’ve longed for release, have you not, these past five years? For satisfaction?”

**It was true. Henry knew it. Henry reveled in it. He burned so brightly like this–in the triumph of his truth–that it was hard to look at him. Victor closed his eyes against the light.**

Henry scoffed, and he was right to. They knew each other too well for lies or prevarication. Henry didn’t need to see Victor’s eyes to read his face. Or his body, which had always been more eloquent, more honest about what it truly wanted, than Victor had ever managed to be. 

“I can see it in your eyes,” Dr. Jekyll said, his voice so soft and so sweet that it was almost hypnotizing. “Use your words, Victor. Let me hear you.”

Something under Victor’s skin thrilled at the softly spoken command, and he shifted, unconsciously opening under Dr. Jekyll’s hands like a flower in the sun. His body was sensitive now, and when Dr. Jekyll ghosted a hand across his cock, Victor let out a whine. His spine arched and shivered as he attempted to get both closer to and further from the sensation.

“Victor,” Dr. Jekyll said again. He gazed down at Victor, eyes warm, but unyielding, the firm hand at his throat the only evidence of his control. 

A small squeeze, and the words spilled from Victor’s lips. “Touch me,” he whispered. “Please. Dr. Jekyll, I can’t–

The shame was heavy on his tongue, and Victor swallowed it down hard, feeling his adam’s apple bob beneath Henry’s palm.

“I can’t do it myself,” he managed.

“Of course you can’t,” Henry said, his hand grasping gently at Victor’s cock, so that it twitched and jerked against his fingers. He smiled, then, and Victor’s breath caught in his throat.

Henry had always been a serious child (they both had) and he was just as serious now. His smiles had always been few and far between, and almost always directed at his work–some new discovery or impossible miracle he’s managed to create. To have that smile directed at him now, after so many years…Victor felt special, treasured. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and Victor didn’t know what to do with it. He looked away, feeling himself flush.

A soft squeeze of admonition, and Victor looked back.

“You’re beautiful when you think no one’s looking, Victor–desperate and struggling. Did you think I had forgotten?” Henry asked. He looked at Victor, eyes shining with emotion. “Did you think I could?”

Victor opened his mouth, then closed it. 

He had thought that. He’d feared it from the moment he last saw Henry, and his fear had grown like a living thing with every moment Henry spent in his workshop, clothed and buttoned up and still so far away.

But this–this was the Henry that Victor remembered, his eyes warm and kind, his hands firm and steady. He was jerking his cock slower now, and Victor struggled to stay upright as his hips bucked forward of their own volition, seeking more. Always more.

But more wasn’t coming. Henry was waiting for something. 

Of course.

Victor looked up at him, eager as a school. “Please, Henry” he said, and Henry’s mouth twitched again.

There.

Then, in one fluid motion, Dr. Jekyll sank to his knees and took Victor into his mouth, so suddenly that Victor’s legs buckled and he had to steady himself against the wall.

“Oh my god,” he breathed, although the deity to whom he prayed was closer at hand than that.

The doctor hummed, down on his knees, like he knew it.

Victor couldn’t see the look on his face, but he could imagine it–fond, and knowing, and _hungry_. The wet warmth of his mouth felt almost impossibly hot, and Victor bit down on a curse as his cock pulsed. His mind, normally running a thousand miles a minute, had shut off instinctively, and Victor couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, couldn’t think–couldn’t do anything but moan uncontrollably as his hands flexed against the wall.

Dr. Jekyll’s hands rested possessively on Victor’s thighs, and he dug his nails briefly into the skin before pulling off of Victor’s dick with a small pop. “Manners,” he said, then resumed his work.

“Thank you,” Victor said automatically, letting his eyes close. 

_I am your true friend_ , he’d said. But he was more than that. Dr. Jekyll was his true friend, but also his true partner, in science as in everything else. Dr. Jekyll was his true everything.

"Thank you,” Victor said again, feeling unworthy, and kept saying it, over and over until the words got mixed in his head and the consonants faded away and all was lost in the moans and gasps that fell from his mouth.

To Henry, fellatio wasn’t an act of pleasure, but a scientific process,  and so he performed it with the same deliberation and precision he brought to his scientific work. His hand moved rhythmically along the shaft of Victor’s dick, while his tongue traced the underside, or the side, or fluttered beneath the head–never in a place that Victor would guess, and never in the same place twice. As soon as Victor came to expect one sensation, Henry would assault his senses with another, each more intense than the last. 

Victor was losing himself in the sensation, and reached out to ground himself with his hands in Henry’s hair.

“You know better than that,” Dr. Jekyll said curtly. 

But Henry’s hair had always held a fascination for Victor. It was long, and soft, and beautiful, and entirely unlike anyone else’s. It was something that was just Henry’s. And so Victor loved it.

When he did it again, two minutes later, the irritation in Henry’s voice was audible. “Victor,” he growled, his mouth slick with spit, and something else.

Victor’s precome. Victor had done that.

“If you do that one more time,” Henry was saying, in a rumble that went straight to Victor’s cock, “I’ll restrain you. Don’t make me tell you again.”

“Of course,” he managed, barely. “I’m sorry, Dr. Jekyll.” This was even less audible, swallowed as it was in a moan as Henry went back to sucking his cock. 

Victor thrust his hands behind his back, palms against the cool concrete and tried, desperately, to control himself. But it didn’t matter. Victor couldn’t. Control had always been Henry’s department, in any case, and with the way he was sucking hard at the head of Victor’s cock, any control he might have had was gone now. 

It was only because of the drugs in his system that Victor hadn’t come already. He felt as though he were on fire–overheated, oversensitive, overwhelmed. He could feel his toes curling and his legs twitching as he tried to keep still.

Feeling a hot tongue against the soft skin of his scrotum, Victor’s hands found Henry’s hair immediately, tightening in the soft black curls like a lifeline. His cock felt like it was trembling now. _Victor_ was trembling. He was going to come. He was going to–

The sudden rush of cool air around his cock felt as violent to Victor as a slap to the face, the release he had so expected snatched away in a second.

“Hands, Victor!” Henry roared, drawing himself up to his full height. 

But this wasn’t Henry Jekyll. This was a hurricane trapped in human flesh–eyes burning with rage, hands shaking as they wrapped around Victor’s throat.

He couldn’t breathe for a moment, and his mouth dropped open from the shock of it. That Henry–cool, collected Henry Jekyll–would react so violently to a minor (and familiar) annoyance was beyond Victor’s comprehension, even if…

Even if this was what he’d always wanted.

Years of falling apart under Dr. Jekyll’s hands and watching him walk away unbothered, unchanged by something that rewrote the laws of Victor’s existence had been almost as unbearable as they were sublime. But this…there wasn’t just anger in Henry’s eyes. There was desire too.

Swallowing against the tightness at his throat, Victor obediently raised his hands upwards, cursing under his breath as Henry stretched them even higher, pressing them against the wall so hard it almost hurt. The pleased glint in his eyes was worth it, though, and Victor moaned as Henry leaned into him, pressing them both against the wall, and devoured his lips in a searing kiss that left Victor lightheaded and as desperate to breathe as he was to come.

When he drew back, the mad passion was past, and Dr. Jekyll was himself again.

“Victor Frankenstein,” he said, his voice crisp and steady. “Look at you.” His lifted his fingers, and oxygen came back into Victor’s lungs at the same time as Henry’s hand renewed its torture of Victor’s cock. 

It was too much. 

Henry’s other hand was still against his wrists, tight like hospital restraints, and Victor reached blindly to entwine Henry’s fingers with his own. 

“Please,” Victor begged, the word spilling from his mouth as soon as he had air enough to voice it. He held Henry’s hand and squeezed, not for emphasis, or for control, but just for the pleasure of holding his hand, of feeling Henry’s pulse beat beneath his own and knowing that, in this at least, they were one.

“Please, Henry,” he said again, his voice turning the name into a plea. 

The cool confidence in Henry’s face slipped for a moment, his eyes going soft and surprised as Henry allowed his hand to be held. 

He stepped forward then, and pressed his lips to Victor’s one more time, his hand moving firm and steady on Victor’s cock. “Come, Victor,” he whispered against his lips, and then all was blessedly silent as sight and sound all turned to pleasure as Victor came, for eons it seemed, with nothing in his mind but pleasure, and the look on Henry’s face.

When he finally came up for air, he was leaning against the wall, his shirt thrown open, his cock hanging out of his pants, and his trousers tangled around his legs. He was still shaking, his cock pulsing and his head pounding. 

“Back in the world of the living, old man?” Henry asked.

Victor would have laughed if he wasn’t so exhausted. Had this always taken so much out of him? “As much as anyone of us can hope to be,” his voice answered. The hot desperation of need was past, and Victor felt embarrassed, as he always did. He turned away, trying unsuccessfully to put himself back together.

Dr. Henry Jekyll, as was his way, was standing against a wall, casually adjusting a shirtsleeve, looking perfect. As if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just remade Victor’s world in a matter of desperate moments. He looked Victor over once, like a buyer taking stock of his property ( _property_ , victor thought, and shivered), then nodded. 

“Good,” he said, and turned on his heel towards the door.

He was leaving again. Goosebumps rose on Victor’s skin. It was cold, he realized, without the twin heats of shame and desire to warm him.

“You’ll come back, won’t you?” Victor asked, nervous and unsure now that the moment of ecstasy was past. Caliban, Proteus, Lily. Lily. Everyone had left. Even Ms. Ives had gone, lost somewhere in a spiral of her own sorrow. If he were to lose Dr. Jekyll again…

Henry stopped at the door, his hand on the frame. “Of course. That’s the difference between you and I, Victor,” he said, not looking back. “I always come back.”

Then the door was closed. And then he was gone.


End file.
